Compassion

//**Definitions:**//
 * feeling of sympathy and sorry for others with misfortune
 * strong desire to eliminate suffering

//**Discussion:**// Use the discussion board to share your personal thoughts, experiences and understandings of this virtue as we progress through the week. Participation is optional, but encouraged. Click on the discussion tab to begin.

//**Quotables:**// Collect quotes that relate to this virtue and share them here. Edit the page, and add the quote and author. Then, give a brief explanation of how that quote relates to the target virtue.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth. - Benjamin Disraeli http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_compassion.html This quote is an example of society today and their morals. Friends hide things from each other, they say it's for the better and they are trying to help them but in the end it is just painful and a stab in the back for trust purposes. Disraeli is generally saying that you shouldn't hide what you feel or feel guilty or sorry for saying it because honesty and truth may hurt initially but is better in the long run of thing

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." Tenzin Gyatso, a Buddhist leader said this, and I believe that it is totally accurate. No one regrets being kind, but often times, people wish that they could take back hurtful words or actions, and then it is too late. Compassion can take away the hassle of personal agendas, as well as unnecessary competition. This virtue ties into the virtue of silence in the way that people should keep their mouths closed if they have nothing good to say. If everyone practiced compassion, the world would be so much better and people would be happier in all aspects of life.

"A good heart is better than all the heads in the world."- Edward Bulwer-Lytton: I think this quote is relating to Compassion through the meaning that a person with compassion (a good heart) will make more good decisions and be a possibly more liked and humanistic person than a very intelligent person (all the heads in the world).

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."- [|The Dalai Lama] The quote demonstrates that compassion is reciprocal. A person who shows compassion for another, shows kindness and brings happiness to the life of another. The person giving compassion also receives happiness; therefore, compassion has a positive effect on both the giver and receiver.

"compassion is the basis of all morality"-Schopenhauer (German Philosopher) This quote to means that all life, including one's morals, should steam from compassion. WIth compassion comes life and happyness.

"Compassion will cure more sins then condemnation" Henry Ward Beecher What this is saying is that by being compassionate towards people its more likely that they will commit less sins then if you condemn them for everything that they do wrong.

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these." - George Washington Carver

This quote summrizes mutiple virtues that we dicuss but the primary one is compassion. According to Carver, One should have compassion because sometime in your life you will be the one reaciving compassion too. It relates to the cliches what goes around comes around, and do to another what you want to do to you.

"Any ordinary favor we do for someone or any compassionate reaching out may seem to be going nowhere at first, but may be planting a seed we can't see right now. Sometimes we need to just do the best we can and then trust in an unfolding we can't design or ordain. " Sharon Salzberg, O Magazine, The Power of Intention, January 2004 This quote expresses that the only way to see compassion is to be kind and loving now, later in life. And even if others do not respond with compassion you know that you tried and you will be rewarded for it.

Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar. -Ralph Waldo Emerson "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." –Mohandas Gandhi
 * This quote means that you have to be a very strong person in order to have the compassion to forgive someone. Contrary to that statement, if you are weak hearted that also means that you will not be compassionate enough to fully forgive another person.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth. -Benjamin Disraeli (James E)
 * When you show emotion, or your feelings, you are in fact showing the truth and should never apologize for it. (James E)

"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government." ~Thomas Jefferson Every good government needs to have compassion in order for their citizens as well as the actual system itself to work. Without compassion, a government would not function and in time it would self-destruct.
 * Compassion is the basis of morality.-Arnold S.
 * This quote serves to explain that compassion is the the most basic elements of mortals. We live for a short period of time on this planet and due to our mortality we should show compassion to each other.
 * " It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice." -Author Unknown
 * This quote explains how compassion is the most important thing in life. Most people want to be famous and popular but if you are not a caring person, then it does not really matter that people know you.

"Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth." -Quote saying basically, only to apologize if one truely means it because is pointless if it is said to show feeling.

“Compassion is a call, a demand of nature, to relieve the unhappy as hunger is a natural call for food. ” - Joseph Butler This quote is saying that compassion helps the unhappy person because when some one is compassionate they are feeling sorry for another person. Sometimes people just want compassion like they want food when they are hungry. When a sad person receives compassion it makes them feel better.

"[|**Compassion** will cure more sins than condemnation.]” -Henry Ward Beecher
 * This quote is similar to the line, "you'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" but it refers to the goodness in all people and our ability to help someone else that brings it to the forefront.

•" I'll cover you. " - angel and Collins from Johnathon Larson's Rent. ~ this is from the song. In Rent called I'll cover you. In this song two people are telling each other that despite the fact they are both very sick and very poor that they will care for each other until the very end. I think this shows anlot of compassion because everyone says they love people but to actually go throuh with it is a different story completely


 * “[|Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.]” -Fredrick Buechner
 * Buechner is saying that compassion is like living in another person's skin. He says that in order to be happy, everyone else must be happy as well. Those with compassion will never be satisfied until others are happy.

> -- Henri Amiel [|http://www.cultureofpeace.org/quotes/living-quotes.htm  "The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion constitutionality is no match with compassion." - Everett Dirksen - This quote shows that compassion, like the heart, is above any logical thought, and thus it is more powerful.
 * There is only one way of not hating those who do us wrong, and that is by doing them good.
 * This quote attempts to shift the mindset of those who do not fully comprehend the ideas of compassion as emphasizes a more positive mind set of doing good opposed to those who hate.

· This quote by Jimi Hendrix, although not directly referencing compassion, can still be related and read as a statement about compassion. He’s saying, compassion is easy in theory but hard in practice, just as the blues is easy to play but hard to feel.
 * [|“Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.” - Jimi Hendrix]

Compassion is the basis of morality. - [|Arnold Schopenhauer], http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_compassion.html This quote shows why compassion is a necessary virtue. All human morals, all ethics of good behavior are derived from being compassionate and caring to others.